nature

Dragons & damsels

sbradford — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:37:19 +0000

Dragons & damsels

July 1, 2026

Think about a fast, maneuverable flyer in nature and likely a hummingbird may come to mind — so agile it can even fly backward! But if you want to see some aerial acrobatics that would make even a seasoned stunt pilot airsick, look no further than the order of insects known as Odonata: dragonflies and damselflies.

These colorful critters so inspired the Russian-American aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky (1892–1972), he named one of his early helicopters the Dragonfly as a tribute.

“Ohio is a great state for dragonfly and damselfly numbers and diversity,” says Bob Glotzhober, curator emeritus of natural history at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus and one of the leading experts on the Buckeye State’s Odonata. “Currently 173 species have been identified, with new species still occasionally added to the list.”

Aggressive mini-predators, dragonflies and damselflies hunt their prey on the wing, capturing other flying insects such as small flies, mosquitoes (hooray!), and, at times, other dragonflies. Larger dragonflies can even take down swallowtail butterflies. And their appetite
is voracious.

Glotzhober cites an early 1900s researcher in Florida who had reared a cageful of houseflies to present to a large dragonfly of the darner family for feeding. “The researcher kept feeding the dragonfly until he ran out of flies, and all in one sitting,” he says.

Although there are dozens of species of dragonflies and damselflies, separating the two categories in the field is simple. While at rest, dragonflies hold their wings perpendicular to their bodies, while damselflies rest their wings over their backs, parallel to their bodies. Dragonflies are also usually larger in overall size; damselflies are more slim and delicate.

Few wild animals have the vision of dragonflies. Their large, compound eyes make up the majority of their heads, with each eye having up to 30,000 facets. Each facet is a photoreceptor and is angled in a slightly different direction, resulting in extremely acute vision and the ability to see in nearly every direction simultaneously. That skill comes in extremely handy for an insect attempting to hunt prey and avoid being eaten at the same time.

Dragonflies and damselflies are also indicators of water quality, serving as barometers of the health of wetlands. The habitat determines the specific species found there. Glotzhober studied the rare tiger spiketail dragonfly in Ohio for months before discovering its primary habitat. “The reason tiger spiketails had been so little known is that they occupy a habitat almost exactly the opposite of most dragonflies and damselflies,” he says. “Most Odonata operate in brightly lit, sunny ponds, lakes, streams, or wetlands. In contrast, the tiger spiketail thrives along heavily shaded woodland streams.”

Though found in scattered habitats around the state, they seem to be most abundant in the hemlock ravines of southeastern counties, like those of the Hocking Hills region. “Furthermore,” he says, “they use only the smallest headwater streams, which are typically 1 to 3 inches in depth and may often be less than a foot wide.”

Glotzhober says the spiketails got their name from the unusual manner in which the females lay eggs. “They hover a few inches above a section of stream with a sandy bottom, usually with only an inch of water or less below them,” he says. “Then, pointing their abdomen downward, they ‘pogo-stick’ their abdomen into the stream bottom, ‘spiking’ their ovipositors into the sand to deposit an egg. I have observed tiger spiketails depositing eggs up to 370 times nonstop, presumably releasing at least one egg with each thrust.”

The eggs hatch into larvae, also known as nymphs — some of which survive several years before transforming into adult dragonflies. Adults, by contrast, live only a few short weeks or months, their primary goal being to reproduce.

Much like birding, the hobby of watching, identifying, and studying dragonflies and damselflies has been increasing in recent years. Aiding the popularity of that fun, leisure outdoor activity has been the proliferation of close-focusing binoculars and camera lenses. Field guides, too, have helped, becoming more plentiful and user-friendly.

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insects

www.hockinghillsyurtsandcabins.com 

Yurt-topia

sbradford — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:22:08 +0000

Yurt-topia

June 1, 2026

Jamie Rhein

Features

More than three thousand years ago, nomads in Central Asia moved from place to place with their homes on their backs. The structures — wood frames covered with felted wool or animal fur — were light, yet they could withstand the winds of the barren steppe.

Yurts, in fact, are still part of Mongolian culture today, and their usefulness has been noticed — they’ve inspired a unique lodging trend that’s gaining more and more fans. Borrowing from those traditional Mongolian designs, modern yurts use a lattice-and-roof-wheel frame covered with a durable, weather-resistant vinyl shell. The roof wheel is often capped with a Plexiglass dome. They’re typically built on platforms or decks with permanent flooring — meant to stay put rather than for nomadic life.

Add some other modern conveniences, and it makes for glamping at its finest. Turn the page to check out a few options for yurt stays right here in Ohio.

Hocking Hills Yurts & Cabins

When Pat and Crystal Murtha stayed in a yurt in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, they found the perfect addition for their 12 acres in Hocking Hills, where they are members of Lancaster-based South Central Power Company and already had a cabin rental available for travelers. “The idea was for something different,” Pat Murtha says. “Yurts give you that outdoor feel, but you have everything you need.” They now have two yurts on the property, Arbor Ridge and Urban Retreat, tucked in their woods outside Laurelville.

Internal walls in the round latticework space create two bedrooms and a bathroom. The bedrooms, living room, dining area, and fully stocked kitchen are open to the Plexiglass dome for a view of the sky. A large flat-screen TV, electric fireplace, air conditioning, heat, and Wi-Fi make this woodland getaway a modern haven in every season. Each has a six-person, private hot tub, an outdoor grill, and a fire ring.

The Wilds

For an Out of Africa experience in an upscale setting, The Wilds has just the thing with its yurt stays. Built to reclaim formerly strip-mined land, The Wilds is a conservation center where endangered species roam the rolling hills and grasslands near Cumberland.

From the deck of a luxury yurt, guests can watch a variety of inhabitants — from rhinoceros and zebras to Sichuan takin and Persian onager — then turn in and enjoy the yurt’s plush bedding and well-appointed bathroom. Sightings, of course, vary depending on the day, and guests should bring binoculars to heighten the views.

At night, the absence of light pollution makes for a stargazing feast with animal sounds as the accompaniment. Concierge services, an animal safari, breakfast, and dinner are included with a stay.

www.thewilds.org

Inn and Spa at Cedar Falls

Since 1987, the Inn and Spa at Cedar Falls has been a champion for Hocking Hills beauty and a respite from urban busyness. The inn’s three yurts combine camping with the inn’s upscale offerings.

Each yurt is a luxury experience built for two. Cozy up in front of the gas-log stove while savoring the inn’s specialty cookies and a mug of hot tea. A king bed, tiled shower bathroom, microwave, and small refrigerator add to the glamping factor. Each yurt also has a private deck with a view of the woods. At night, stargaze through the yurt’s dome.

Kindred Spirit, the Inn and Spa’s restaurant and bar in the original 1840s cabin, offers signature dishes, craft cocktails, and a seasonal menu. The Rise and Dine menu offers a mix of breakfast and lunch items — breakfast is included with an overnight stay.

www.innatcedarfalls.com

Ohio State Parks

With miles of multi-use trails and lakes, Ohio State Parks are both a bounty of nature and an outdoor playground — and three state parks have seasonal yurts that combine rustic living with a camping vibe. Vinyl canvas creates the feeling of sleeping in a tent without the hassle — listening to rain is pleasant without having to fret about water seeping inside.

In Courtland County, Mosquito Lake State Park boasts one of Ohio’s largest lakes (7,850 acres), and has two yurts with prime views of the scenic shoreline. The two yurts at Harrison Lake State Park in northwest Ohio are near that park’s 95-acre lake, playground, and shower house.

Both parks’ yurts have a similar setup: two bunk beds (twin on the top, double on the bottom), a small refrigerator, a microwave, a small table and chairs, and a fan.

The two furnished yurts at Kelleys Island State Park, in the basin of Lake Erie, are bigger, include a kitchen, and have large decks that are perfect hangout spots in the evening.

A fire ring and picnic table complete the campground spot of each park’s yurts, which are available seasonally, from the middle of April to October.

www.ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/unique-getaways (search “yurts”)

Tags

camping

Explorer

sbradford — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:49:53 +0000

Explorer

May 1, 2026

Steve Pollick, the former outdoors editor for The (Toledo) Blade, even after decades of international adventures and more awards than he can count, remains one of the most humble, unassuming, approachable, and genuinely friendly people anyone could ever meet. He spent decades narrating his travels for his readers, and, now in his late 70s, still has a regular outdoors/environmental column, “Open Season,” that appears monthly in Ohio Outdoor News.

Recently, I sat down with Steve to talk about his career and his life in the outdoors, and just listen to some of his fascinating stories.

During the second half of the 20th century, every big-city daily newspaper in Ohio employed a full-time outdoors writer. That person wrote a column several times per week — usually including a feature-length story on Sundays — highlighting the Buckeye State’s fishing, hunting, natural resources, and nature-related activities. Among the very best of those unique scribes was Pollick, who wrote for The Blade from 1982 to 2011.

Born in Cleveland and raised in Fremont, Pollick displayed early interests in both the outdoors and writing. He soon discovered, through his high school English teachers, that he had an innate ability to break down complex concepts and make them easy for people to understand.

He graduated from the University of Toledo and earned a master’s from Ohio State, then went to work as a general assignment reporter for The Blade. His editors noticed his well-researched, accurate stories, and offered him the coveted position of outdoors editor. He jumped at it.

“When I accepted the job, [owner Paul Block Jr.] told me he expected just two simple things of me,” Pollick remembers: “‘I want you to travel the world, and just do The Blade some good.’ It was an outdoor writer’s dream come true.”

Pollick certainly took the assignment to heart. He traveled to some 45 countries during his nearly 30-year career, filing stories from exotic locations around the globe — including two notable trips to China and one to the Arctic in extreme northern Canada.

“The China trips involved me tagging along with members of the Toledo Zoo, who were working with the Chinese government to live-trap pandas in the bamboo forests of China’s Southwest Mountains,” Pollick says. “Some of the captured pandas were transported to China’s Wolong research center, while others came to Toledo for a one-year exhibit.”

The trip to the Barren Grounds of the central Canadian Arctic was for a series of stories on the “caribou” Inuits, indigenous people who mistakenly used to be called Eskimos. “They survived primarily by hunting migratory caribou, and I wanted to tell the story of their primitive, disappearing culture,” Pollick says. “I rode dog sleds pulled by fan-teams, with Elizabeth Alooq, the first Nunavut provincial minister, who spoke almost no English.”

Pollick’s newspaper stories were so enlightening and worldwide in scope that they quickly caught the attention of the prestigious Explorers Club in New York City, and he was made a member in 1987 (joining fellow Ohioans Neil Armstrong and John Glenn). He was granted emeritus status in 2017, six years after retiring from The Blade. “Apparently they thought my writings contributed to the good of the Explorers Club mission of education,” he says, “so I rated the extra recognition.”

Pollick says he dodged death at least eight times during his many years of traveling to remote locations around the globe. “I was charged by large, dangerous wild animals three times: a bull hippo, cow elephant, and female tiger. I nearly froze to death, twice; almost crashed a bush plane I was flying; survived a 105-degree fever for several days; and much closer to home, on Lake Erie, two fishing buddies and I had our boat completely swamped by a rogue wave.”

Of course, things weren’t always so life-or-death. He remembers being invited to eat a meal in a rural Chinese community, where he was seated around a wooden table with a large stew pot sitting in the middle of it. “My host handed me a ladle and motioned for me to dip out some food from the pot,” he says. “When I did so, out came a rooster’s head, complete with neck attached. My host was very pleased, as the head and neck were considered the choice pieces of the meal. Actually, it didn’t taste too bad.”

Pollick says one of the greatest outdoor memories of his career came while covering the 2000 Iditarod, the annual sled dog race stretching 938 miles from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.

“One night, I had the opportunity to borrow a snowmobile and take a solo ride of several miles up into the mountains,” he says. “The temperature was ‘plenty-below zero,’ but I was dressed for it. I remember it was a clear, windless, star-filled night, with the colorful Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, hanging over it all.

“I stopped the snowmobile in a mountain pass, and as I sat there in the deep silence of Alaska’s winter wilderness, a wolf pack began howling far away on the ridge to my left. They were soon answered by a second wolf pack howling far away on the ridge to my right. It was one of the most spectacular, serendipitous moments I’ve ever experienced in the out-of-doors — that experience went deep into my soul.”

Steve Pollick was inducted into the Ohio Natural Resources Hall of Fame in 2022.

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High-tail it outta here!

sbradford — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:07:30 +0000

High-tail it outta here!

January 1, 2026

Gray squirrels are the bane of those of us who attempt to keep backyard bird feeders filled with birdseed. In large cities, small towns, and even rural areas across the Buckeye State, these arboreal aerialists seem to defy gravity in getting to places we don’t want them to be. But there was a time in Ohio history when gray squirrel populations were even higher than today — much higher.

Prior to statehood in 1803, Ohio was covered with mature forest from north to south and east to west. Add in various species of nut trees — oaks, hickories, chestnuts — and this vast area was gray squirrel paradise; they thrived in untold millions.

For instance, a very early Columbus resident and hunter shot 67 gray squirrels in one day from just one tree in the middle of a cornfield on what today is the Statehouse lawn. In 1807, gray squirrels had become such a nuisance due to destroying corn and other crops that the Ohio General Assembly passed a law stating that each person subject to payment of a county tax “…shall in addition thereto, produce to the clerk of the township in which he may reside, such number of squirrel scalps as the trustees shall, at their annual meeting, apportion, in proportion to their county levees, provided that it does not exceed 100 or be less than ten.”

In addition to high squirrel numbers — or possibly because of it — an even more amazing phenomenon occurred during those early years that we no longer see today: mass gray squirrel migrations. It seemed to happen every five years or so. A few restless squirrels would begin moving together through the treetops, soon to be joined by dozens more, then hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, with all the squirrels continually moving rapidly in the same general direction. Even when the squirrels encountered a large stream or river, they didn’t hesitate; they just jumped in, began swimming, and once on the other side simply crawled out, climbed a tree, and kept going.

Early Ohioans who observed these gray squirrel migrations firsthand reported that the squirrels did not appear to be starving or in poor health. In fact, they oftentimes left areas of abundant food. Milton Trautman, a well-respected Ohio biologist of the 20th century, wrote the following: “The [scientific] literature contains many diverse statements about these movements, of many squirrels that drowned attempting to swim across the Ohio River. It is stated that whenever mass drownings occurred, if one stood on a high hill considerably removed from the river, the river’s course could be observed to be outlined by vultures flying above it, searching for drowned squirrels upon which to feed.”

So, why did gray squirrels occasionally move to new locations? Unfortunately, wildlife biologists today simply do not know. What we do know, however, is that as Ohio’s virgin forests were cleared for settlement, and the gray squirrel population declined as a result, their periodic migrations gradually declined as well, until eventually stopping altogether.

Of course, more than a few tall tales grew up around squirrel migrations, especially having to do with how they crossed rivers. The “tallest” of the stories stated that some gray squirrels, upon reaching the Ohio River and seeing its huge size and powerful current, would grab a shingle from a pile of wood meant for the roof of a nearby log cabin, place it in the water, jump aboard, then lift and spread their tail to act as a sail, and cross the river to the Kentucky or West Virginia bank, arriving high and dry.

I seriously doubt that ever happened.

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A good ear

sbradford — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:25:30 +0000

A good ear

May 1, 2025

Learning any hobby is always easier with a mentor — even a virtual one. Take birding, for example. I’m no techie, but I have been using a smartphone app to learn bird songs and calls for the last couple of years, and I’ve been extremely impressed by its ease of use, accuracy, and just plain fun.

So if you are new to birding, or even if you’ve had a pair of binoculars hanging around your neck for years, this app can help. Best of all, it’s free!

Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Labs is available in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, or by clicking here. And not only is it free, it is also ad-free and there are no in-app purchases needed.

“The Merlin Bird ID app contains identification support and photos, sound recordings, maps, and descriptions for more than 10,000 bird species from around the world, with more species being added constantly,” says Kathi Borgmann, communications manager for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which developed and owns Merlin. “More than 29 million people worldwide have installed Merlin on their phones, with June 2024 seeing the greatest number of Merlin users, more than 5.4 million during that month alone.”

Borgmann says that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers the app for free because it’s their mission to advance the understanding and protection of wild birds. “We’re a nonprofit organization that is funded primarily by members and donors, so it is those generous people who help us provide Merlin at no charge.”

The pioneering sound-identification technology was integrated into the previously existing app in 2021. Merlin is aptly named for a small, fast, fierce falcon. It’s as easy to use as downloading the app to your smartphone, then going outdoors to listen for singing or calling birds. When you hear a nearby bird that you’d like to identify, simply point your phone toward the sound and push the app’s “Sound ID” button.

The app listens to the sound and makes a suggestion as to what bird species it’s hearing. Once the bird stops singing or you want to stop recording, simply push the stop button. You then have the option of listening to recordings of other individual birds of the same species, already loaded onto the app, to see if yours matches. That’s helpful because, just as people have different accents and dialects depending upon where they live, birds do too.

But wait, there’s more! You can also identify a bird by taking a photo of it with your smartphone’s camera, and the app will identify it. Or, you can answer five basic questions about a bird you saw and the app will make the identification based on the information you provide. As a test, I tried it on a common bird that everyone knows — a robin I saw mugging a worm in my backyard — and the app spit out the correct answer in no time. You can also explore a list of birds common to your area.

You don’t need the latest and greatest smartphone to take advantage of Merlin. For years I used an ancient iPhone 8, upgrading during the last year to an iPhone 15, and Merlin works well on both. By the way, the sound ID feature operates completely offline, so you can identify birds anywhere.

W.H. “Chip” Gross is Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor. Email him with your outdoors questions at whchipgross@gmail.com. Be sure to include “Ask Chip” in the subject of the email. Your question may be answered on www.ohiocoopliving.com!

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Remembering Rafinesque

sbradford — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 14:57:35 +0000

Remembering Rafinesque

April 1, 2025

Craig Springer

Features

Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz is the scientist you did not know that you knew. His walkabouts through Ohio impressed upon him a desire to discover more about plants and fishes and a prehistoric culture that predated him by millennia.

This self-educated polyglot and polymath possessed a brilliant and inquisitive mind, an unceasing curiosity — and an eccentric and prickly personality that made him easy to dislike.

But let’s go back to the beginning. He was born in 1783 in Turkey and spent his youth in France. His father was French, and a successful international merchant. His mother was born in Germany, and her son carried her name until adulthood. His father died of yellow fever when Rafinesque was but 10 years old.

The family moved to Italy to escape the terrors of the French Revolution. It was there that a self-educated Constantine came of age and took an ardent interest in natural history and languages, which would come to have its consequences in the names of organisms — through the eastern U.S., in Ohio, and even into the American Southwest.

Rafinesque lived through a number of tragic incidents over many of his 56 years. While still a precocious young man, he collected and described for science (that is, to give an organism its first formal scientific name) new plants and fishes from Sicily. Striking out on his own, the young scientist traveled to the United States anticipating museum work. Then, tragedy hit in 1815: He lost all of his belongings, papers, books, and his collected plant specimens along the Atlantic Coast in a shipwreck — and he nearly lost his life.

He landed on America’s shores in Connecticut with nothing but the drenched clothes that he was wearing. He eventually established himself as a serious botanist in New York.

The man collected and described plants with great frequency and intensity. He habitually wore a long coat with many pockets to stash plant specimens to preserve and describe.

He had interests beyond plants. In 1818, Rafinesque walked the length of the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to southern Illinois, collecting plants and fossils and catching and drawing fishes from the main river and the many tributaries that poured into the Ohio.

Another unfortunate event occurred along the way. Rafinesque spent a protracted time with the now-famous bird artist John James Audubon, who lived near the Ohio River in Kentucky. Rafinesque wore out his welcome, setting off events that damaged his standing as a scientist.

Bats flew into Rafinesque’s room one evening and the eccentric guest swatted the flying mammals with his host’s prized violin, ruining it. Audubon returned the favor by suggesting that Ohio River tributaries were populated with mysterious fish species. Rafinesque made the mistake of trusting Audubon, fell for the prank, and published descriptions of Audubon’s fake fishes — ten in all — without seeing them, in what is otherwise a seminal 300-page text, titled Ichthyologia Ohioensis.

The fake fish tarnished the polymath’s reputation and did not serve Audubon well, either.

Passing through the Chillicothe area, Rafinesque was taken by the multitude of Indian mounds and the earthen ceremonial structures that surely stimulated his interest in archeology. Rafinesque excavated mounds and prodigiously published papers in what few scientific journals and popular magazines existed at the time. He also self-published his own tracts.

Circleville’s postmaster, Caleb Atwater, who was also a lawyer, had his own ardent interest in the ancient Indian earthworks; he published his own papers and a book on the Adena and Hopewell cultures — but to the dissatisfaction of Rafinesque, who publicly criticized the man. Atwater, not taking kindly to the criticism, embarked on a letter-writing smear campaign, maybe with free postage, against his critic. It had the intended effect, impugning Rafinesque’s credibility, painting him as a crank and a sloppy scientist, a reputation that followed him to his grave in 1840.

Rafinesque did not always help himself. He professed to have deciphered the Walam Olum, a purported creation and migration story of the Delaware Indians who once inhabited Ohio. For decades, the Delaware Tribe accepted it as genuine. Modern scholarship in the late 20th century, however, revealed that Rafinesque perpetrated a fraud, actually translating English words into the Delaware language to create a believable but ultimately false story. Scholars surmise he hoped to gain a prize from an organization in Europe.

This much is true: The frenzied genius published 900 scientific papers and several books on topics of medicine, banking, archeology, and the Hebrew language. He named 6,700 plants, several species of turtles and mammals, including deer and coyote, and 26 fishes native to Ohio. Many organisms have since been named in his honor, including one you might find underfoot in slabs of limestone so common in Ohio. Specimens of Rafinesque’s eponymous genus of extinct brachiopods are fossilized in stone, a testament to a brilliant mind.

Constantine Rafinesque died in 1840 of liver cancer, perhaps brought on by herbal treatments he created
for himself.

Tags

Ohio history

Farming for wildlife

sbradford — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:19:22 +0000

Farming for wildlife

March 1, 2025

Co-op People

It’s easy to tell you’re approaching the farm of Union Rural Electric Cooperative member Steve Graham. When the seemingly endless crop fields of corn and soybeans suddenly give way to acres upon acres of waving native prairie grasses studded with brilliantly colored wildflowers, it’s a refreshing change in a sea of sameness.

Graham’s 110-acre farm has been in his family for a century, he says, and for much of that time, it blended in with the surrounding landscape. That changed when he and his brother began managing the farm about 20 years ago. “We decided to not continue planting the usual row crops because, as marginal farmland, the rent money we were receiving barely covered the taxes,” he says. “Instead, we took advantage of a state/federal program designed for such acres and converted most of the farm to conservation practices.”

Now, 100 of those acres are used for wildlife habitat and soil preservation.

The original farm contained a few small woodlots, which Graham kept. Also, because much of his ground is made up of water-loving hydric soil, he built a sizable pond and large wetland, paying for their construction through cost-sharing. The wildlife haven now attracts myriad songbirds, waterfowl, pollinators, white-tailed deer, and even a bald eagle or two.

Under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program, established in 1985, the government pays farmers to take former croplands out of production and convert them to vegetative cover. Graham participates in an offshoot of that program, the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or CREP, which uses state and federal funds to offer higher payments per acre to qualifying participants.

The program is not available in every Ohio county. Where it is an option, the acres eligible for CREP enrollment are determined by the Natural Resources Conservation Service office within each county. All of Union County falls within the Scioto River watershed, and at least 20 cities downstream tap the Scioto for drinking water; since maintaining good water quality upstream is an important goal of the project, the entire county is CREP eligible.

“The bottom line is that by installing and maintaining approved conservation practices, I now receive twice or more the amount of money I was once receiving by renting my land for the production of row crops,” Graham says. “The program has not only allowed me to financially keep the farm in our family, but also to significantly preserve the soil through reduced erosion.”

The transition has also reduced the stress of maintaining all that acreage as farmland. “As my neighbor recently told me, ‘You don’t have to worry about crop prices falling or the combine breaking down during harvesttime,’” he says.

Not that it was always an easy process. Graham says it took a bit of experimentation to figure out the best way to plant the seed for the wildflowers that are so beneficial for pollinators.

“The seed was very small and lightweight, so to make it disperse through the mechanical planter more slowly, my NRCS office advised me to mix dry cat litter with the seed,” he says. “I found that a 10-to-1 ratio of cat litter to wildflower seed was about right, and since I was attempting to cover 60 acres, that translated to 2,200 pounds of litter to 214 pounds of seed.” That solution worked perfectly except for one thing: “It seemed I was always waiting for my local farm store to restock its supply of cat litter.”

To find your local NRCS office and check your property’s eligibility, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov.

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Ohio's national park

sbradford — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 20:20:02 +0000

Ohio's national park

January 1, 2025

Sarah Jaquay

Features

Imagine, if you will, the 1974 landscape in the valley carved out by the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland: beautiful waterfalls surrounded by deep woods, interesting and plentiful rock formations, colorful meandering meadows, idyllic small lakes.

But those 33,000+ acres also were heavily used by residents, by industry, by commerce. The land also included Richfield Coliseum, then a popular concert venue and home of the still-fledgling Cleveland Cavaliers; a declining (now abandoned) paper mill and surrounding company town that had sprung up around it; and a private dump that would soon become an EPA Superfund site because of its toxic contamination.

In December of 1974, 50 years ago last month, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to create the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area, the third national recreation area created as part of the federal government’s “Parks for the People” movement (the others were the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco and Gateway National Recreation Area near New York City). The CVNRA became a national park in 2000 — 25 years ago this year.

“There’s a lot of hope involved in taking a landscape and turning it into a national park,” says Jennie Vasarhelyi, chief of interpretation, education, and visitor services at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which marks its anniversaries with a series of events and celebrations over the coming year.

The “Parks for the People” movement was partly in response to urban unrest that had spread across America during the Vietnam era, and partly to make National Park Service lands more accessible to people who couldn’t visit the more iconic but remote locations, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Badlands.

Deb Yandala, president and CEO of the Conservancy for the CVNP, a nonprofit organization that promotes and fundraises for the park, says there was incredible local support for the CVNRA at the time. “This park exists because of our community members,” she says, crediting everyone from garden club members who led bus tours of the valley to politicians like the late Ralph Regula (R-Canton) and the late John Seiberling (D-Akron), who worked across the aisle in support of the founding legislation.

Even Carl Stokes, the iconic former Cleveland mayor, New York City news anchorman, United Auto Workers general counsel, and U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, had a role. “When the Cuyahoga River burned (in 1969), he really raised environmental awareness,” Yandala says. That national moment, with Stokes’ advocacy, helped lead to the Clean Water Act and other federal legislation protecting natural resources, and helped push both the Cuyahoga Valley’s original designation with the NPS and its elevation to a national park 25 years later.

“The park didn’t really change that much when it achieved national park status,” Vasarhelyi notes, ”but the public’s perception of it did.”

And almost immediately, the region saw an uptick in tourism. “The CVNP became a must-stop for people who want to hit every national park,” says Lindsay Regan, the conservancy’s director of park experiences.

The park is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year (with the exception of a few specific areas that close from dusk until dawn). No entry fee or pass is required. Click here for general information about the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and for specific anniversary information, click here. Keep checking back, as new events are added regularly.

Celebrating success

The CVNP and its conservancy are hosting a variety of smaller events and programs to mark its anniversaries over the coming year, rather than one or two signature events.

A speaker series runs through April and features topics including the urban parks movement, recreation as a human right, and the importance of beavers to restoring biodiversity.
The conservancy’s Rhythm on the River concert series will also continue at the park’s Howe Meadow in 2025, free and open to the public.
The conservancy also commissioned a public art project to mark the anniversary — a mural that covered layers of graffiti on the Boston Mills Road bridge abutment that’s visible to kayakers on the river and to tourists at the visitor center on Riverview Road.

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In search of... the Labrador duck

sbradford — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 20:03:42 +0000

In search of... the Labrador duck

January 1, 2025

Professional ornithologist Glen Chilton made quite the interesting offer in 2009: “I will pay a reward of $10,000 to the first person who can direct me to a genuine stuffed Labrador duck that I have not seen and described in my book, The Curse of the Labrador Duck. I don’t want to buy the duck; I just want to examine it. After I have verified its legitimacy, you get the money.”

A Canadian now living in Australia, Chilton is the world’s foremost authority on the extinct Labrador duck and was quite serious about his cash offer. No one ever collected.

“My editor at Harper-Collins Canada made the very wise suggestion that I put a time limit of one year on the offer,” Chilton says. “In that year, I had all sorts of claims on the money, but none of them turned out to be real Labrador duck skins. Some were re-creations from bits and pieces of other ducks, and some were females of other species.”

Chilton made the offer because he had just completed a nearly 10-year study to personally examine all 55 known remaining taxidermic mounts and study skins of the bird, and he wanted to make sure he had located them all.

His quixotic quest took him to museums throughout North America and Europe. He logged 72,018 miles on airplanes; 5,461 miles on trains; 3,408 miles in cars; 158 miles in taxis; 43 miles on ferries; and 1,169 miles on buses. That total of 82,257 miles is longer than three times around the earth at the equator!

The Labrador duck became extinct more than a century ago. Its breeding grounds are unknown, though suspected to be in northern Canada, but it wintered along the Atlantic coast, particularly in the vicinity of New York City. The last known Labrador duck, an immature male, was shot in the waters around Long Island in 1875. That bird now resides in the Smithsonian.

Though a serious ornithologist, Chilton has a well-developed sense of humor, which, though it extends to all birds, is particularly focused on the Labrador duck. In his book, he writes briefly about the famous bird artist John James Audubon (1785–1851) and his brush — pun intended — with the Labrador duck.

“When I say that it was Audubon’s goal to ‘study and paint’ birds in Labrador, I mean that he planned to shoot a lot of birds, bring their corpses back to camp, stick wires up their bums to hold them in place, twist them into postures they never could have attained in life, and then paint them,” he says. “You don’t have to look at many Audubon paintings to get a sense of what I mean.”

Here’s Chilton’s tongue-in-cheek description of a male Labrador duck he tracked down at the Redpath Museum in Montreal: “While measuring its left wing, I glanced at its head, and could swear that it was giving me a reproachful look. I wanted to explain that he had been dead for at least a hundred years before I was even born, and that I am a vegetarian, and don’t shoot ducks or any other animals, and that I feed bread crumbs to ducks every chance I get, and … but I didn’t feel that he would be satisfied with any answer I gave.”

The closest Chilton ever came to Ohio during all his miles of travel was when he visited a Labrador duck specimen at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology. Of his experience there, Chilton said, “The city [Ann Arbor] has a population of 109,000 but Michigan Stadium seats 105,000 for university football games. Oddly, attendance at a single football game almost exactly matches the number of visitors to the University of Michigan’s Museum of Art in a year. And the museum is free.”

(Of course, all of us Ohio State Buckeye fans somehow suspected that.)

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